Advisory Board

Advisory Board

Advisory board

The programme of panel discussions, workshops and presentations are created in partnership with an expert team of advisors, who between them have a wealth of FinTech and RegTech experience in their respective fields:

Scott Hendry

Senior Special Director FinTech

Bank of Canada

Scott Hendry was appointed senior director Financial Technology (FinTech) in the Funds Management and Banking Department (FBD) of the Bank of Canada in June 2016. In this role, he oversees the Bank’s efforts to monitor and research developments and implications of new technologies affecting the financial sector. He previously held the role of Director of Research for FBD and, before that, for the Financial Markets Department (FMD). His personal research has focused on electronic money, price discovery in the Canadian government bond market, and central bank communication. He has a PhD in Economics from the University of Western Ontario.

Beju Shah

Head of Data Collection and Publication

Bank of England

Per Nymand-Andersen

Adviser

European Central Bank

Johannes Turner

Director of the Statistics

National Bank of Austria

Johannes Turner is director of the Statistics Department of the National Bank of Austria, which is in charge of compiling and analysing monetary, interest rate, supervisory and external statistics and maintaining the Austrian Central Credit Register. He is a member of the Statistics Committee of the European System of Central Banks, and a representative in the Committee on Monetary, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics in Luxembourg (CMFB). Since 2013 Johannes Turner has been representative in the ESF (European Statistical Forum) and since 2016 he has been vice president of the European Committee of the Central Balance-Sheet Data Offices (ECCBSO). He is advisory board member of Statistics Austria (NSI) and a member of the ERP (European Recovery Programme) Audit Committee. In 2014-15 he chaired the European Central Bank taskforce for a harmonised reporting framework for banks in Europe. He was promoted to his current position in June 2010 after having worked on banking supervision at the National Bank of Austria for 18 years. Mr Turner holds a master's degree and a PhD in business administration from the University of Vienna.

Serdar Guner

MS, Chief Regulatory Officer

Astana Financial Services Authority

MrSerdar Güner joined the Astana Financial Services Authority as the Managing Director and Chief Regulatory Officer in May 2018.

After graduating from Brooklyn College in New York with a Degree and Masters in Economics, Mr Güner joined the New York State Banking Department. His primary responsibilities included on and offsite examinations of the major money centre banks, savings institutions and credit unions. He was assigned to the Tokyo offices of the Department in 1998 where he was responsible for both on and offsite reviews and risk assessments of complex derivatives, one-off structured products and instruments newly introduced in the market within the Asia Pacific region. He joined the Department’s London offices in 2004 focusing on the same banks’ European and South American operations while taking on the responsibility of retail-based banking operations of Article XII companies and large money centre institutions.

In 2007, Mr Güner joined the Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Authority as an Associate Director within the Supervision Department, responsible for the operations of banks, investment banks, Islamic institutions and branches in the Centre. In 2010 he joined the Dubai Financial Services Authority and was responsible for areas spanning prudential and conduct supervision matters ranging from day-to-day supervision of firms to supervisory framework implementation and FinTech in leadership roles.

In addition to a Master’s Degree in Economics from Brooklyn College, Mr Güner has a post graduate diploma in Islamic Banking from IIBI and International Diplomas in Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crime Prevention from ICA. He is a Certified Fraud Examiner, (CFE-USA), and a Certified Anti-Money
Laundering Specialist (CAMS) and has a Certificate in Islamic Banking from CISI and in FinTech from MIT.

Abhaya Prasad Hota

former CEO

National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)

Abhaya Prasad Hota was until recently the managing director and CEO of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Previously, Mr Hota worked at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for 27 years before joining the NPCI in the area of design, development and implementation of electronic payment systems. At RBI, Mr Hota headed the Department of Payment and Settlement System. During the NPCI tenure during 2009-17, he was instrumental in launching two game-changing remittance products: Immediate Payment System and Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Aadhar Payments Bridge and RuPay domestic card payment network. He combines the experience of a regulator and CEO of a technology-led national level payments utility. He had played a key role in promotion of digital payments in the aftermath of demonetisation in India.

Arvinder Bharath

Senior Manager, Financial Technology and Information Security

Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago

Arvinder Bharath is the Senior Manager in charge of Financial Technology and Information Security at the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago; a position she has held since April 2016. Prior to this, Mrs. Bharath held the position of Deputy Inspector, Supervision, in the Bank’s Financial Institutions Supervision Department. Previously, she was President and Country Head of RBC Royal Bank in Trinidad and Tobago and held a number of senior positions at Barclays Bank in the United Kingdom and internationally.

Mrs. Bharath’s blend of experience as a technologist, banker and a supervisor position her well to lead the technology function at the Central Bank in this era of Fintech. A practical business perspective renders her well equipped to rigorously evaluate new technologies with respect to their relevance, risks and benefits. She continues to meaningfully support the Supervision arm of the Bank in assessing technology-related risks in the financial system.
Mrs. Bharath is the founder and Chair of the Regional Central Banking Cyber Information Sharing Group and a similar group for the local banking sector. She also chaired the working group tasked with examining the applicability of crypto-currencies and distributed ledger technology in the financial sector under the aegis of Caribbean Telecommunications Unit (CTU).

Mrs. Bharath holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Greenwich University and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of London.

Mohammed Nyaoga

Chairman of the Board

Central Bank of Kenya

Richard Heckinger

Former vice president and senior policy adviser

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Richard Heckinger was formerly vice president and senior policy advisor, Financial Markets Group, at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He started his career in financial markets at the Chicago Board Options Exchange in 1973. His career has included executive management of financial market operations and risk. He has a wide range of international experience including positions in Montreal, London, Hong Kong, Boston and Chicago. He has served on international committees, including a Federal Reserve Bank of New York working group, the OTC Derivatives Regulators’ Forum, SWIFT, and the International Securities Services Association. He has a MPhil degree in economics from the London School of Economics, a BA degree in mathematics from the Illinois State University, and completed the Advanced Management Course at the University of Chicago.

Mardilson Queiroz

Senior Advisor to the Regulation Department

Banco Central do Brasil

Senior Advisor of the Financial System Regulation Department at the Central Bank of Brazil, Doctor of Economics and graduate in Electronic Engineer. He has been a staff member of the Central Bank of Brazil for more than 20 years and has participated in working groups of the World Bank and the BIS on issues related to standards and good practices in the area of payment systems. Was responsible for the regulation of the business model on loans between people through electronic platforms (P2P lending), recently published by the Central Bank of Brazil.